What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

halogen bulb failure

hydroguy2

Well Known Member
I am installing my wingtip landing lights. They are 75w halogen which I bought a year or so ago. Fresh out of the box and no light. I checked the sockets and am getting 12 volts. Any ideas? do these go bad sitting on the shelf?

strange that both lamps are not working, or maybe I'm a moron and have them hooked up wrong....there's only 2 wires how could I be wrong?
 
Try them directly on the battery, with a couple of test leads.

Make sure you have 12v, D.C. units.

Good luck
 
OK, so you've done half the troubleshooting exercise. Have you tried hooking the bulbs up across a known good 12v battery.......say the one under the hood of a car?

I've dropped a regular 120v un-powered incancascent bulb, resulting in a dead bulb when screwed into a lamp. The same thing could kill a halogen bulb too.

Oh, one other thought. Are your bulbs 12v DC..........not 120v AC?
 
yep, 12v lamps

yep, 12 volts checked across the socket, but no joy when the lamp is plugged in.

the battery I'm using is an old Powersonic, but has powered everything so far. NAV's work good. I'll go hook them up to my jeep next.
 
call off the dogs

OK, so I'm a little electrically challenged. Here's what I found out

A dead battery may show 12volts across the battery terminals and this may be plenty if you're only trying to run some LED nav lights. Once you try to run a some amps(like a flap motor or 75w Halogen) the volt drops to near zero


SO I'll take 50 lashes and go do some fiberglass for being a fool.:eek:
 
Float charger needed...

When I bought my Odyssey battery, I also bought a charger with a 1 ampere rating for charging, showing a RED light-emitting diode (LED) during the charge cycle. During the float charge of the battery, a circuit in it turns on a green LED when the battery is fully charged, and the RED LED goes dark.

And yes, you discovered Ohm's Law about voltage, resistance, and current. A volt-ohm-meter measuring resistance across the bulb contacts would have told you if the filament in the bulb had been broken.

Now, to save you some grief when you get the battery charged, did you handle the bulb with bare fingers and leave your body oil and finger prints on it? If you did, it will crack the glass bulb when it gets hot. Clean it good before you "Light it up", or it will have a short life.
 
didn't think of the battery being a problem as I had used it the day before playing with the flaps. Then when I hooked up the lights, the Nav's worked fine, and dead battery only reared it's ugly head on the landing lights. I'm guessing my flap episode did it in. I've got a trickle charger I throw on it once in a while.

so as to not punish myself too much, I skipped the fiberglass work and decided to fab up a aluminum reflector plate to cover up the circuit board of my nav lights. I still need to polish it, but may try to make one out of mirrored plexi.
RV-7build089.jpg


also, bulb is safe I learned the finger oil lesson years ago with my shop lights
 
Back
Top